{"id":175324,"date":"2025-06-11T09:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/175324\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T09:45:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:45:25","slug":"agadoo-singer-film-still-pushing-pineapples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/175324\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Agadoo’ Singer Film ‘Still Pushing Pineapples’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe 32nd edition<\/a> of the Sheffield DocFest<\/a>\u00a0kicks off on June 18 with \u2026 no, not a bang, but a banger. \u201cEntertainment, working class culture, human connection, the power of pop and the state of Britain align in a funny, irreverent road movie that follows an aging pop star trying to revive and keep alive his past triumph.\u201d So reads the synopsis for director and cinematographer Kim Hopkins<\/a>\u2018 new documentary, Still Pushing Pineapples, which tells the melancholic and heartfelt story of the former singer of pop band Black Lace, best known for the novelty hit \u201cAgadoo,\u201d a much-maglined novelty song, along with such other British wedding and party favorites as \u201cSuperman,\u201d \u201cDo the Conga,\u201d and, yes, \u201cWe\u2019re Having a Gang Bang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you think you have never heard the 40-year-old \u201cAgadoo,\u201d you may be surprised to realize you have when you read its famous chorus: \u201cAg-a-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree. Aga-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, grind coffee. To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees.
Come and dance every night, sing with a hula melody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn her cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9\u00a0style<\/a>, Hopkins and her camera followed Dene Michael, who still goes on the road to perform this and other hits, with his aging mother and his young partner in tow, dreaming of a comeback and writing a hit song that is different from his usual stage repertoire.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe doc\u2019s title is inspired by the \u201cAgadoo\u201d lyrics-inspired title of Michael\u2019s book Still Pushing Pineapples: The True Story of The Legendary Dene Michael. \u201cThe film highlights the fleeting nature of fame and the ever-changing landscape of British society and cultural tastes,\u201d highlights a summary on the Sheffield DocFest<\/a> website. \u201cAbove all, Michael\u2019s charm and affability shine through, resulting in an entertaining, and ultimately touching, life drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tProduced by Margareta Szabo and edited by Leah Marino, the film gets its world premiere as the opening-night presentation of the Sheffield DocFest, which runs through June 23. Jenny Bohnhoff at MetFilm Sales is handling sales on the project.<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the world premiere of Still Pushing Pineapples, Hopkins talked, via Zoom from York in northern England, about the inspiration for the film, her fly-on-the-wall doc style that is like \u201cjumping off a plane with a suitcase\u201d and being a doctor on call, how she feels many docs have lost authenticity<\/a>, her plans for completing her \u201ctrilogy of working-class stories\u201d with a doc about a pub, and why she always wants to make \u201cfilms that have hope in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you find out about Dene, find him, and decide to make a doc about him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was at my mother\u2019s and had just finished a film. There were loads and loads of IP films around on lots of musicians, Wham!, and whatever. And I was thinking what IP I could get. What can I possibly get to? And I asked my mother: Do you remember that band? They had that terrible song in the \u201980s, and then it came to me. So I said, \u201cAlexa, play \u2018Agadoo,\u2019 and that was the first time I\u2019d heard it in something like 30 years. And so I did a Google search on them, found out that they were actually from Yorkshire, in the north of England. I didn\u2019t even know they were British. And I had a meeting with Dene, invited him to see my previous film, A Bunch of Amateurs, which he loved. He kind of understood the type of films I made. And he was completely afraid. I said, \u201cLook, unlike with these IP films, I want total access. That\u2019s how I make films. It\u2019s about a genuine relationship, and you have to trust me. And we will make this film together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTell me more about your fly-on-the-wall, immersive documentary style and why that is so important for your storytelling?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI went to the National Film and Television school, and I was, I was brought up on cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9, observational cinema, or direct cinema, whatever people want to call it these days. It\u2019s moved on from those long takes, and you tend to edit for story more nowadays. But I\u2019ve always maintained that the very DNA of documentary film is this authenticity you get without sitting somebody in the studio and asking them to tell you about what\u2019s happened in their lives, out of context of everything.<\/p>\n

\n\tI believe that the documentary is currently suffering because of this. They have thrown the baby out with the bath water. It has lost its authenticity. The unique selling point of documentaries is that stuff. I think audiences see themselves reflected, they relate, and they go on these journeys with people. So, no sit-down interviews, no narration. Try and tell the story as it unfolds.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, that leads to the story. Things happen \u2013 you have completely unexpected turns of narrative. For example, when I started filming with Dene, I had no idea [his partner] Hayley was going to come along at all. My original idea was: Here is a guy who\u2019s been singing party songs for 40 years, and whatever\u2019s going on in his life, no matter how he\u2019s feeling, he drives across the country and has to sing these party anthems, then goes home at three in the morning and sits in his flat. And that was his life. And then, of course, Hayley came along, and that changed things. Actually, I think Haley brought a lot to the film, an awful lot. And those are the beautiful things that happen in this type of filmmaking when you just allow it. It\u2019s like jumping out of an airplane holding just a suitcase handle. You just have to go with it.<\/p>\n

\n\tI caught myself feeling with and for her, him, and them. So, sometimes I ended up being torn while watching them.<\/strong> How is that for you as a filmmaker?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBeing a filmmaker or being a journalist or being anything where your job is more than your job becomes part of your life. It becomes you. We get defined by what we do, some of us very much so. And I think Dene very much got defined by what he did. Hence, the metamorphosis, symbolism I was really interested in.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I first met Dene, he\u2019d got his autobiography called Still Pushing Pineapples out, and it was the word \u201cstill\u201d that really interested me. 40 years, I thought \u2013 what does this do to somebody? What does singing \u201cAgadoo\u201d 20,000 times do to somebody? There is no escape. And as you see in the film, when they bury his singing partner, or cremate his singing partner, Colin, even at his funeral, the song is played. And I think it was at that point that Dene really realized that he has to embrace this. \u201cThis is who I am and how I\u2019m going to be defined forever. Go with it!\u201d It is also about the idea of what sacrifices you make in life when your job defines you. What happens to family, what happens to all of this stuff? It\u2019s the idea that he finds Haley, finds children, the young children, and that he has something else that he can aim for in what\u2019s left of his life.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe issue of finding one\u2019s role in the world and the freedom one has to change it, or not, goes beyond Dene Michael. How much of a universal story did you feel you were telling?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re absolutely right. I think it is universal. For a lot of us, our careers just take over, and there comes a point in your life when you kind of start to reevaluate. \u201cDid I make the right life choices along the way, and what did I sacrifice making those choices?\u201d Dene, I think, really embodies that. And I think that is a universal theme. <\/p>\n

\n\tYou know the idea that musicians end up getting defined by certain pieces of music, whoever they are \u2013 whether you\u2019re Leonard Cohen singing \u201cHallelujah,\u201d or something else. The opening of the film shows a line from Mick Jagger who said: \u201cIf I reach 45 and I\u2019m singing \u2018Satisfaction,\u2019 I\u2019d rather be dead.\u201d But what is it like to sing \u201cAgadoo\u201d for 40 years, not just when you\u2019re 45, but when you\u2019re in your 60s?<\/p>\n

\n\tHow long did you spend filming Dene?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThese films always take more or less the same time, about two and a half years. I think that is the biggest commodity I can give to people: time. I regard my job as being like a doctor on call, so I\u2019m always available. And that\u2019s a big sacrifice in life to make. <\/p>\n

\n\tI had a conversation with Dene\u2019s mother, and I said: \u201cYou know, should something really bad happen to you, should you pass away, can I film? How do you feel about that? I would like to film at your funeral. This would be a big change in Dene\u2019s life.\u201d And so all of these things are discussed while making a film, and that only comes through time. Time creates trust. That\u2019s what we do with friends. We gain trust by having long relationships with people.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tone of the film is a mix of warmth but also sadness. How would you describe it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMelancholy? Yeah, melancholy.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow do you deal with drama that unfolds in front of your camera when there is a risk that it could feel exploitative?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDrama does happen. There was this incident when Dene\u2019s mother got very, very ill in the van on the way to Benidorm, Spain. They\u2019d set off in this old camper van that had no air con. It was that summer, when it was reaching 38 degrees [Celsius], a really hot summer. And Dene\u2019s mom got heat stroke in the van. We had to stop. We pulled her out of that van. We got her into another van with air con on, and we stopped filming the whole thing. And we got her into a room. So, yes, there are points where you make those decisions.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is real life, there are real people who are going to have a life when I\u2019ve left. And so there are points where we do stop, but not for things like pride and things that are not materially damaging to people. Dene struggling to find work is a universal thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow do you find where to end your films?<\/strong> And tell me a bit about how the ending of this film came about?<\/strong> [SPOILER<\/strong> WARNING<\/strong>: details about the doc\u2019s ending are contained in this answer.]<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m always trying to make films that have got hope in them. And working-class lives are tough, and it\u2019s sometimes quite hard to find hope. And with Dene, I really wanted some kind of crescendo. I wanted him to get a big audience at the end, and that just wasn\u2019t going to happen. I just didn\u2019t think he was ever going to get another hit record. And I thought: what can we do? How can we give Dene hope at the end?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe insisted he could sing, even though he was just singing \u201cAgadoo,\u201d \u201cSuperman,\u201d and \u201cDo the Conga.\u201d When his mother told us about this very beautiful ballad, I thought I\u2019m going to see if I can get the rights to that. And we gave Dene an opportunity and said: Do you want to record this? He said, \u201cYes, I\u2019d love to, for mom. I\u2019d love to record it.\u201d And so we got him in the studio, and he sang. And he sings it really beautifully. I think it proves that he does have a voice. And that gave him some kind of legitimacy after 40 years of agony, derided by the music press. I just wanted to give him something that was credible, along with his finding a new family, finding hope in love. We wanted to leave it with some hope, even if it wasn\u2019t him making a new hit record or finding a new big audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat final scene was actually shot in the Scottish Borders [in southeastern Scotland, bordering England] where they have these really lovely venues in quite small towns. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did you pick the title Still Pushing Pineapples?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe chose Still Pushing Pineapples as the title of his autobiography, and, as the film alludes to, he wasn\u2019t going to escape from that. In some ways, it\u2019s like creating Frankenstein. You end up being the monster yourself. <\/p>\n

\n\tIs there anything new that you\u2019re already working on? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMy previous film, A Bunch of Amateurs, was basically about an amateur filmmaking club, again a working-class story about who art belongs to. Who does creativity belong to? And again, it was in a genre that is struggling to keep going. It kind of was an allegory of Hollywood and the collapse of Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, we have Still Pushing Pineapples. And then the third film that we\u2019re making in a trilogy is set in a real ale pub in Bradford, Yorkshire. The film is called The Local. We\u2019ve already been filming for a year and a half in it. <\/p>\n

\n\tMartha Gellhorn, who was married to Ernest Hemingway, said when she visited the U.K.: \u201cIf you want to find out what\u2019s happening in the U.K., visit the pubs.\u201d And I am kind of using that as a guiding force. So, we\u2019ve been filming in this pub [called Jacobs Well], finding out what people are thinking about, what\u2019s happening globally, what\u2019s happening in their local town, what\u2019s happening in their own lives, and what\u2019s really important to them in this world that\u2019s really quite mixed up. This is going to be the third part of this trilogy of working-class stories, and particularly northern [English] working-class stories. It\u2019s nearly shot, and we hope to get that out maybe late next year.<\/p>\n

We have found that pets are massive. You can talk about Musk or Trump, or are we going to have a nuclear war, what\u2019s happening in the Ukraine, what\u2019s happening to their local town? But ultimately, the thing that tends to bond people is their love of their animals.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow does it feel to open Sheffield DocFest?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a brave film for Sheffield to open with. In these fairly troubled times, they could have chosen something much more overtly political. This film, set in the north of England that has some humor in it and has something really quite profound to say about things that I think will speak to ordinary people, not the bubble of documentary makers, is a very good choice, I find personally. But it\u2019s quite brave.<\/p>\n

\n\tDene is a kind of anti-hero in lots of ways. He\u2019s very unfashionable. He\u2019s a white working-class bloke who has hooked up with a girlfriend 30 years younger than himself. But we do maintain empathy for the whole thing. It is really important to have empathy for our characters in these types of films. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Still Pushing Pineapples\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Sheffield DocFest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 32nd edition of the Sheffield DocFest\u00a0kicks off on June 18 with \u2026 no, not a bang, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,522,1620,31670,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-175324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-sheffield","13":"tag-sheffield-docfest","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114664096333927375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}